Swan Lake @ The Theatre Royal

Some of the arts choose to move forward quicker than the audiences they perform to. One such performance has to be Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake when it first opened in 1995. Controversially for the time, the flock of female swans, graceful and demure from Tchaikovsky’s original work were replaced by a flock of all male swans, strutting and masculine.

The story is almost as old as time; in Bourne’s production the Prince craves intimacy and closeness from the male swan – the premise which originally caused outcry’s and walk-outs from audience members when originally produced.

In 2010, the picture of the male swan designed by Lez Brotherstone is now an iconic figure, described by Bourne as “a beautiful, wild, lyrical, menacing and totally masculine creature.” Richard Winsor portrayed the swan and the stranger as electrically menacing and masculine, with the kind of charisma that evokes envy and passion, counter pointed well by Dominic North’s Prince who displays a burning need to be loved.

Cited more as a contemporary dance and theatre piece than a traditional ballet, there is lots of humour throughout and the mixing of Tchaikovsky’s music with a seedy 60s style bar works surprisingly well. The parody of the Pas de Quatre with the four male swans plays on contemporary dance and brings the production firmly into the new century. In an accepting society it is no longer a controversially different piece; more one which plays beautifully on human relationships – be they between men and women, or any variant of either.